


We Loved with a Love That Was More Than Love

by derekmorgan



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Angst, F/M, Romance, also there is smut in this, although it's not as heavy as my other fics, apart from adam being a duke and belle being a duchess, as per usual, it's a victorian au but the fic doesn't necessarily center around that fact, this is my ode to poe, y'all probably wouldn't have noticed this was a victorian au if i hadn't said anything lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-11-13 15:11:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11187717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derekmorgan/pseuds/derekmorgan
Summary: "His heart skipped a beat when her soft, tender hand slipped into his, trusting and with certainty. That was different—whatever ‘that’ was.'Love,' he thought, to his own dismay. 'It’s love.'"Or—Belle is unsettled by thunderstorms, and Adam tries his best to comfort her. In an unexpected, and somewhat liberating, turn of events, Belle ends up helping Adam as well.





	We Loved with a Love That Was More Than Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FantasticalNonsense](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FantasticalNonsense/gifts).



> This fic is based off the wonderful headcanons by Brenna (@FantasticalNonsense on AO3, @fantasticalnonsense18 on Tumblr). I will link the headcanons in the end notes, and I highly recommend reading them along with this fic, since they provide a lot of background. This fic also features the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Choderlos de Laclos.

Something akin to what Belle supposed felt like a lioness clawing out the insides of its prey throbbed in her stomach, and made her wrap her arms around her abdomen and hunch into herself. The deep rumble of thunder resounding outside the house stiffened her frame, as if the storm was going to manifest into something concrete and she was preparing for the blow.

Perhaps standing by the front room window while the storm blustered right beyond the glass wasn’t the most sensible option, but Belle refused to leave her post until she saw Adam return home. A part of her knew (but tried to reject) that she was less unsettled by the storm, and more discomforted by the fact that Adam was not there with her during it.

It was befuddling, really, just how quickly her feelings toward her somewhat-arranged husband had taken a turn for the better. Being trapped in a marriage with a man who embodied and outwardly expressed so much bitterness and irritability had made her equally as discontent as he was, and she had often found herself yelling unfiltered words teeming with loathing and resentment at someone who was just as quick to do the same to her. She had hated him for using her, confining her to such an unhappy life so that he could use her wealth to maintain his grand estate, stripping her of her freedom for his own benefit.

It took months of strained and tentative conversations shared in the library and in the gardens, conversations that gradually grew in comfortability and profundity, for Belle to realize two things.

The first thing she realized was that she had been ignorant and hypocritical, overlooking her own greed that had fueled her marriage to Adam in the first place. When her uncle left to her a fortune that could only be obtained through the security of marriage, Belle allowed herself to succumb to an opportunistic espousal proposed by a duke none other than Adam Beaumont. It was convenient, for Adam since Belle’s inheritance would ensure that he kept his property, and for Belle since a husband guaranteed her money to her, money which she had desperately needed at the time to help her struggling father. When she accepted his proposal, she had agreed to use him just as much as he was going to use her.

The second thing she realized was that there was more to Adam than met the eye, and beneath the dark parietal of years of emotional damage and insecurity was a beautiful heart that was full of something quite like love, but so unused and out of practice that it often expressed itself in unpredictable spurts, before Adam quickly tried to conceal it. It came out when he recited Shakespeare, adoration dancing in his eyes when they drifted to Belle, as he repeated from memory lines thick with passion. It was also evident in his proximity when they leisurely walked through the gardens together, too close to be just be friendly, but still too far to be profoundly romantic, sometimes with a gentle and slightly unsure hand on the small of her back to steer her while they strolled.

After realization struck, it did not take long for Belle to fall in love with Adam and his many layers. Although she had yet to admit it; to him, or to herself.

The young duchess swallowed, squinting her eyes to try and see through the heavy rain that obscured her view. The gesture was pointless, however, since the landscape was suddenly lit up, clouds briefly flashing with blinding light before the sky roared, Belle jolting away from the window just as her eyes picked up on a familiar silhouette approaching the porch. Relief surged through her tense body, and she finally, gratefully, left the window and hurried to the foyer, just as a drenched Adam emerged from the wet.

“Are you mad?!”

Adam gave her a weary look, running a hand through his doused hair and over his face, fingers dancing over the scar that dragged across his eye, before stripping off his waterlogged jacket. “I am quite sane, thank you, _dear_.”

Belle scrunched up her nose in distaste at the mocking manner he uttered the endearment, something he often did, as if to emphasize the insincerity of their marriage. He did it less frequently, though, since things have changed—since their feelings have changed—and she noticed that he only did it now in moments of vexation.

He seemed to pick up on her unfavorable reaction to his smart remark rather quickly, and his face flashed with remorse. He mumbled a flustered and brief (but still genuine) ‘I’m sorry’ before returning to his previous state of annoyance.

“But in the other sense of the word, I am very angry,” Adam tugged his shoes off one by one, watching the water that poured out of them with a set jaw. “Where is Lumière? I intend to thump him for sending me out without an umbrella.”

“It isn’t Lumière’s fault,” Belle scoffed. “You saw the sky this morning, you should have known better.”

“Oh, my dearest, how I love it when you talk down to me.”

“Must you be so sardonic?”

“I am wet through and absolutely freezing, I think I am entitled to a little sarcasm.”

Belle smirked. “You think you are entitled to everything. I say you are more deserving of a thumping than Lumière is.”

Adam squinted his eyes challengingly, something like fondness pulling at his lips when Belle’s smirk broadened into a grin. He opened his mouth to retort just as another flash of light cascaded through the windows, briefly painting the walls and furniture in white before another roll of thunder exploded outside.

Adam witnessed with a sinking heart the smile vanishing from Belle’s face, watched the fear etch its way into her features and wrack through her small, now-trembling frame.

“Oh,” he vaguely remembered a fleeting comment Belle had made during an afternoon spent in the library, where she self-consciously admitted to him how inexplicably anxious storms made her. He suddenly felt foolish for disregarding her earlier concern. “You don’t like storms.”

She crossed her arms protectively over her chest at another low peal of thunder, and Adam couldn’t help but frown at the sight, a sudden urge to cocoon Belle in his arms and hold her until her body stopped shaking overcoming him, drawing him closer to her with hovering, unsure hands.

“I apologize, Belle. I… I forgot. I didn’t mean to leave you here alone,” Adam took another step toward her, studying her with penitent eyes before holding out one of his hesitant hands to her. “Here, I think I know what may help. Follow me to the parlor?”

His heart skipped a beat when her soft, tender hand slipped into his, trusting and with certainty. That was different—whatever ‘that’ was.

 _Love_ , he thought, to his own dismay. _It’s love._

He tried to ignore the way her hand gripped his just a little tighter when the thunder sounded outside again, and as he led her into the parlor, he was both pleased and wary to find that there was already a fire going, along with two blankets set out on the sofa.

 _Lumière must have overheard my plans to berate him,_ Adam concluded as he walked Belle over to the sofa. _That nosy rascal was more clever than he let on._

He murmured a quiet ‘sit,’ and immediately grabbed one of the blankets and wrapped it around her shoulders when she was seated on the chesterfield in front of the fireplace. His fingers accidentally grazed her neck, and the touch made Belle’s skin blossom with gooseflesh, a spark igniting just behind her neck that shot down her spine and forced her body erect.

“Are you comfortable?” Adam asked worriedly when he felt her tense under his touch, his hands still on her shoulders when she nodded her head.

“Thank you.”

Adam shivered once, because he was still wet and cold even despite the warmth radiating from the fire, and also because Belle was staring up at him intensely, emotion shining behind her gaze that he couldn’t quite place. He dragged a hand through his hair again, backing away from the sofa carefully.

“I will be right back.”

He was only able to turn around before he heard Belle’s panic-ridden voice. “Where are you going?”

When he faced her again, he suddenly had an overpowering desire to caress her face, to smooth over the furrow between her thin eyebrows, especially when he watched her pull the blanket tighter around herself at a particularly loud crash of thunder. “I was only going to make a quick run to my study.”

“For what?”

“Books.”

When Belle stared blankly at him, he elaborated. “I thought some reading might relax you.”

Her lips quirked up at that, and relief made Adam’s heart flutter when Belle smiled softly and became noticeably less tense.

 _Yes, “relief_ , _”_ Adam chided himself. _Belle was right, you do need a thumping._

“I appreciate the gesture, but,” her teeth dragged over her bottom lip, and Adam looked anywhere but her mouth. “I just would rather not be alone right now.”

She sounded so small, so vulnerable, and it pained Adam to see her so absolutely shaken that he couldn’t even reap pleasure from the fact that she found comfort in his presence. He also had never before found himself so deeply impacted by someone else’s unhappiness, and he thought that said a lot about the effect Belle was having on him.

He wordlessly moved back over to her, grabbing the other blanket and laying it out on the floor so he could sit on it, resting his back against the arm of the sofa.

“Why are you on the floor?” the disappointed inflection in Belle’s voice warmed Adam’s cheeks, thoroughly flustering him.

“I am still wet, if you haven’t noticed. You won’t let me leave to change clothes, and I don’t want to ruin the furniture.”

The words left his mouth without a thought, and he immediately regretted them once they pierced the air, the silence that followed them making Adam wince. Every time he seemed to be getting somewhere with Belle, the cold, dark part of him that he couldn’t seem to shake away sensed his affection and set out to snuff it.

_Control your tongue, beast._

“Right,” she mumbled, and something pulled in Adam’s chest when he heard Belle shift further away from him. “Sorry.”

“No, Belle, don’t—” he sighed, hands covering his face and head falling back against the gold trimmed arm of the sofa with a _clunk_. “Don’t apologize. You’re already upset, and I’m making it worse.”

When she didn’t say anything, his hands fell in his lap and he shook his head. " _I’m_ sorry. I’m...” he chanced a look at her, and Belle’s breath caught at the sincerity shining in his blue eyes. “I’m trying.”

“I know,” she nodded earnestly, because she believed him, and because she wanted him to _know_ she believed him. Then she gave a smile that was somehow both wicked and charming. “I do know everything, in case you have forgotten.”

“Quite cheeky for someone who was just cowering in fear over a little thunder.”

“Quite condescending for someone who is currently sitting on the floor at my feet.”

Before he could laugh, Belle’s whole playful demeanor vanished at another roar of thunder, her small, delicate shoulders jolting with the gasp that passed her lips.

Adam was at a loss, because though his heart was telling him—yelling at him—to hold her, kiss her, calm her, his mind insisted that she would recoil from him just as she recoiled from the storm. So he resorted to the one thing he knew she would never reject; literature.

“Perhaps you should lay down,” he suggested, rolling his eyes when she shot him an inquisitive glance. “I may not know everything like you, but I do know some things. Do you trust me?”

She studied him for a moment, that profound, unidentifiable emotion that made Adam restless present in her stare again. Then the blanket loosened around her shoulders as she gave herself room to move, resting her head right below the same arm of the sofa that Adam was leaning against, her face hardly a foot away from the back of his head, and her breathing far too close to his skin. His chest swelled at her compliancy, and suddenly he didn’t need a change of clothes or the fire, since Belle’s faith in him had warmed him enough to last a winter.

He turned to face the fireplace once again, feeling uncharacteristically untethered. And when he felt Belle shift uncomfortably at the sounds of the storm outside, he absentmindedly hushed her. “Rest now, my love.”

That certainly stilled her, as it did him. There was no contempt or bitterness behind the endearment, not like before. On the contrary, it was quite doting, and it caught them both off guard. Adam thanked God that Belle couldn’t see his face, since he could feel the blush pricking his cheeks (although, she did notice with a small smile the blossoming shade of pink creeping down his neck).

He felt slightly off, slightly misplaced, like a door off one of its hinges and hanging ajar, as if with one strong blow he would be wide open and completely vulnerable. He felt so unlike himself.

Or maybe he felt _like_ himself; the “him” that he buried away deep down within, beneath hurt and anger and sadness when he was so young; the “him” he tried to mask with a sharp and bitter tongue; the “him” that he suppressed for so long that he was unfamiliar with how it felt to _be_ him again.

Belle did this to him, pried him open so subtly and unexpectedly, and left him simultaneously disconcerted and besotted to the point of madness. She did it with her wit, with her heart, with her intense eyes and soft smile, and with her beautiful, beautiful mind.

And each time she re-opened him, it became increasingly more difficult to combat the stir of emotions that overcame him. It also became harder to close himself off again.

Adam breathed in through his nose and set his gaze to the deep orange glow in front of him, willing the lick of the flames to settle his emotional turmoil. And as his heart reigned over his mind, he recited a poem he held dear.

 

“ _It was many and many a year ago,_

_In a kingdom by the sea,_

_That a maiden there lived whom you may know_

_By the name of Annabel Lee;_

_And this maiden she lived with no other thought_

_Than to love and be loved by me._

 

“ ** _I_ ** _was a child and_ **_she_ ** _was a child,_

_In this kingdom by the sea,_

 _But we loved with a love that was more than love_ _—_

_I and my Annabel Lee_ _—_

_With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven_

_Coveted her and me._ ”

 

Belle found herself completely captivated by Adam and the deep, low sound of his voice, entranced by the smooth flow of the ballad as it passed from his lips and danced through the quiet air, over the sensitive skin of her ears, making her shiver and pull the blanket further up her chin. He had read aloud to her before, but there was something different this time, something heavy and passionate behind his clearly articulated recitation.

From where she was lying, she could see the fluid movement of Adam’s jaw illuminated by the fire as he continued to tell the tale of Annabel Lee, of the angels who were envious of her and the narrator’s love, and of the seraphim that caused her death.

And as he transitioned into the last two stanzas, Belle’s sharp eyes picked up on a slight quiver in his jaw.

 

“ _But our love it was stronger by far than the love,_

_Of those who were older than we_ _—_

_Of many far wiser than we—_

_And neither the angels in Heaven above_

_Nor the demons down under the sea_

_Can ever dissever my soul from the soul_

_Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;_

 

“ _For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams_

_Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;_

_And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes_

_Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;_

_And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side_

_Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,_

_In her sepulchre there by the sea—_

_In her tomb by the sounding sea._ ”

 

Nothing but the crackle of the fire and the quietening storm could be heard once Adam finished the poem. He had left behind a feeling so deep-seated that it felt wrong to break the silence, to disturb that profound _something_ swimming in the air around them.

“Who was that?” Belle breathed, and Adam could feel her exhalation whisper across the back of his neck.

“Edgar Allan Poe.”

“Poe?” her voice raised slightly in disbelief. “That poem wasn’t at all frightening. It was actually quite beautiful.”

Adam gave a dry laugh. “I know. That is precisely why I like it.”

She waited for an explanation, and when he didn’t continue, she huffed and sat up, nudging his shoulder with her knee. “Well? Are you going to elaborate?”

“I don’t know that I want to,” he said honestly, eyes still glued on the blazing fire.

“Do you trust me?”

And just like that, with four simple words stolen from his lips, Belle had turned the tables and once again found a way open him up even further. She kicked the door and knocked it off another hinge.

He finally lifted his gaze from the fireplace, turning his head and looking up to see Belle watching him with curiosity. “Tell me, Belle, when you think of Poe, what is the first thing that comes to mind?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. “Fear? Most of the work that I’ve read by him left me feeling uneasy.”

Adam nodded. “Now… be honest. Before we met, and all you knew of me were the scandalous stories and rumors of violence, what was the first thing that came to mind when you heard my name?”

“I truthfully hadn’t heard much about you before our marriage.”

“Oh, come now,” he gave her a bitter smile. “You never heard of the Beast of Balmore? The antisocial, volatile duke with the hideous scar to prove his monstrous nature?”

“You know I never liked gossip. I wouldn’t have believed it, anyhow.”

“Yes, I know,” he murmured. She was too good for all that. Too good. “But not everyone is as gracious as you, Belle.”

“So they called you a beast,” Belle furrowed her eyebrows when she watched him trace a finger over the scar on his face. “We both know that’s not true.”

“Oh no, I started to believe it,” he shrugged at her incredulous stare. “You hear it enough, and it just starts to make sense. Even you called me a beast when we argued.”

“Yes, but—”

“You see, Belle,” he looked away from her again, his eyes stony as they settled back on the fire. “People think of me and they are filled with fear, and they associate me with ugliness, disgracefulness, misfortune... they think of a beast.

“When people think of Poe,” he continued. “Similar themes come to mind. Fear, as you said yourself, along with other things like disaster, horror, and grimliness.”

“I still don’t understand,” Belle said, and Adam could practically hear the gears working in her head. The thought made him smirk fondly. “What does this have to do with the poem?”

“You didn’t recognize ‘Annabel Lee’ as work of Poe because it was uncharacteristically beautiful, is that correct?” when he heard her small hum of agreement, Adam heaved a loaded sigh. “It goes to show that even the bleakest and most frightening of people can be the source of a little beauty. I like to think that also applies to me.”

Belle held her breath, awaiting the routine change of topic that always came after any of Adam’s personal revelations. When he didn’t make an effort to dismiss the conversation, Belle cautiously climbed off the sofa, sitting next to him on the floor and gazing at his profile.

“I know that there is beauty in you, Adam,” her voice was gentle, quiet, but _sure_ , and it brought Adam’s eyes back to her face, and he admired the way the firelight softened her features.

“So,” Belle’s voice had a playful lilt to it, an attempt to lighten the heavy air. “What do you think is your little beauty? Your ‘Annabel Lee’?”

With that question, Belle had finally kicked the door off its last hinge. She watched Adam’s blue eyes glimmer affectionately, the same way they did when he read her Shakespeare. “You.”

Well. She certainly wasn’t expecting _that_.

Her chest constricted at his honest, wide smile, and for the first time in a long time, she was at a loss for words.

“You are the most beautiful thing about me, Belle,” Adam laughed, slightly out of breath, his face burning and stomach flipping in on itself at how intense and open he felt. “Marrying you was the one thing I did right.”

Belle’s cheeks were painted pink, her lips parted in wonder, and her eyes wet and shining with that damned emotion that Adam had yet to put a name to.

_Once again, it’s love, you absolute clod._

“Would you like me to recite something else?”

“Yes,” she breathed.

Outside, the wind whistled loudly and a distant rumble could be heard.

This time Belle didn’t recoil into herself.

This time Adam didn’t avert his gaze to the crackling fire.

This time they stared into each other’s eyes as Adam quoted the passionate words of Choderlos de Laclos.

“ _Now, I’m not going to deny that I was aware of your beauty,_ ” Adam lifted one of his hands to stroke her cheek, and Belle shivered, partly because his skin was still cold from the rain, but mostly because his touch was no longer hesitant; it was certain. “ _But the point is, this has nothing to do with your beauty_.”

“ _As I got to know you, I began to realize that beauty was the least of your qualities. I became fascinated by your goodness. I was drawn by it. I didn’t understand what was happening to me. And it was only when I began to feel actual, physical pain every time you left the room that it finally dawned on me..._ ”

A beat.

“ _I was in love_ ,” Adam smiled something magnificent. “ _For the first time in my life.”_

“ _I knew it was hopeless, but that didn’t matter to me. And it’s not that I want to have you. All I want is to deserve you. Tell me what to do. Show me how to behave.”_

His other hand cupped the empty side of her face, and his voice quivered as he breathed out the last line. “ _I’ll do anything you say._ ”

Belle’s lips were more insistent than Adam remembered. When they sealed their vows during their surreptitious wedding ceremony, her kiss had been brief and he had barely been able to register the sweet taste of her mouth before it was gone.

But now her kiss was far from brief, and so unyielding that Adam found himself unable to escape it, even when she dragged him down on top of her as she fell back onto the blanket.

“de Laclos?” she gasped when he parted from her mouth, only to rest his forehead upon hers so he could catch his breath.

“Those are his words, yes,” he panted, and he felt his body melt into hers when her fingers entwined in his hair. “But that was _me_.”

In that moment, Adam decided that if he could spend the rest of his days doing one thing, it would be kissing Belle. He was sure that he would never tire of the way she breathed against his face, of the way he could feel more than hear the quiet, content sounds that escaped between their mouths, of the way her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks when he grazed his teeth along her bottom lip.

And oh, Belle’s mouth was a treasure, whether it was pressing kisses along his jaw, rowing with him, or spewing witty remarks. But it was most precious, Adam thought, when it was professing her love for him.

As mouths replaced clothes and kisses moved lower, the words ‘I love you’ were murmured, gasped, moaned over and over against lips, against skin, like a song or a prayer.

Perhaps the latter was more fitting, since Belle was truly the most divine being he had ever laid eyes on. She was all milky skin, rosy cheeks, and breathless whispers, her body glowing as it bared itself in the firelight. Adam thought she could most certainly pass as a goddess, one of which he was more than ready to worship.

And worship he did, as he bowed between her legs and devoted himself to her with his mouth.

“Adam,” she choked on his name, her stomach jumping at the feel of his tongue teasing over her sex. “Oh…”

From below, Adam watched Belle with reverence, letting her furrowed brow and increasingly loud keening spur him on. And when she threw her head back, repeatedly crying out her love for him, he met every chant with the stroke of his tongue, until she was rocking her hips against his mouth and submitting to her pleasure with such grace and beauty that it no doubt would put Aphrodite to shame.

With one last fleeting kiss to her center, Adam climbed up her slender frame and gazed upon her flushed face with admiration. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, nails lightly digging into the skin right above his shoulder blades, and pulled him down so that he settled his weight on top of her.

“So,” she smiled slowly, mischievously, emboldened by the weight of Adam’s arousal resting against her stomach. “It’s good to know that your mouth can do more than just grouse and argue.”

“Careful, dear,” Adam ducked his head, his mouth by her ear as he lowered his voice threateningly. “You are in no position to be teasing me.”

She clucked her tongue. “Empty threats. If I do recall, you were the one who said you would do anything I say? That I should tell  _you_ what to do?”

His forehead fell against her shoulder, and he made a sound deep in his throat at her tinkling laugh. “Anything,” he affirmed, lifting his head to look down on her again with conviction. “Anything you say.”

One of her arms unwound from his shoulders so she could stroke a hand down his face, her fingers tracing his long, ivory scar with tenderness. “Well then, I say that you should stop thinking I’m the most beautiful thing about you.”

“Belle—”

“Shh,” her fingers left the scar and pressed against his lips. “Adam, I love you, but please don’t pretend that I am the only good in your life. The fact that you are here now, being open and honest with me, allowing yourself to feel, allowing yourself to love…” she trailed off, her eyes shining with pride. “The beauty behind the beast isn’t me, Adam, it is your strength to defy everybody’s expectations of you, to not succumb to their fallacious speculations. That part of you that you tried to bury away and disguise with your fractiousness, but was strong enough to survive the turmoil,  _that_ is the most beautiful thing about you.”

Adam closed his eyes when they started to burn, his breathing shaky as he buried his face in Belle’s neck. She was too perceptive for her own good. “God, how I adore you.”

“And another thing.”

“Anything.”

“Since I have say.”

“Of course.”

“Make love to me.”

“Gladly," he groaned, loudly and shamelessly, lifting his head and pressing a hard kiss to her lips.

His unwavering hands guided her legs around his hips before he reached between them and positioned himself, mouthing over her chin with wet, soothing lips as he eased into her, gauging her comfort by the pinch of her nails on his skin.

Belle didn’t know how else to describe the feeling of Adam inside her apart from thick, full, and _right_. And she certainly didn’t know how else to describe the sound that left her lips upon his entrance apart from something obscene, her toes curling and back arching at the stretch of his intrusion.

And once he started moving, hips gliding in slow, deep strokes, Belle swore she felt her body sizzling and popping like the charred wood in the fireplace, her skin burning everywhere Adam kissed, nibbled, and sucked.

“You feel exquisite,” he sighed against her bosom, pressing his lips there before letting her pull him up for another sweeping kiss. She gasped his name when he angled his thrusts slightly upward.

“Yes, my love?”

“Just like that.”

“Like this?” he smiled devilishly at her loud cry when he repeated the motion.

“ _God_. How do you manage to be just as insufferable even when you’re buried deep inside me.”

He growled. “Keep talking like that, and it won’t be that way much longer.”

She laughed breathlessly, letting his face go so that he could press it against the junction where her neck met her shoulder, his labored breathing leaving the skin there warm and wet.

He recognized the signs of her nearing climax, the way her body started to tremble, how the pitch of her voice raised just so at the end of each moan. And when she convulsed around him, so delicious and perfect, it didn’t take long for Adam to follow her over the precipice, a delightful throb pulsing low in his belly as he spent into her.

Everything sounded far off, clouded, as Adam rolled him and Belle over so that he was on his back. Her giggle was there, but it was distant and muted.

Everything was still.

Perhaps this was what the calm after the storm was like. After years of repressing so much of himself, years of a storm raging deep inside of him, all of it finally quieted, and Adam felt so raw in the aftermath.

“How do you feel?” her voice was as gentle as her fingers tracing over his chest.

 _For once_ , he thought. _Like myself_.

“Free,” he murmured, looking down at her and smiling. “Never better. How do _you_ feel?”

“Safe.”

And with that, she hugged herself tighter against his chest, his arms encasing around her delicate frame, surrounding her, protecting her.

Through one of the parlor windows, Adam could see the clouds breaking apart in the sky. The storm had settled—both outside, and within himself.

He traced circles into the smooth skin of her back, his lips brushing against her forehead as he spoke softly, the sun peeking through the clouds making him think of Belle and how splendent she was.

“ _My darling—my darling—my life and my bride._ ”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Brenna for her headcanons, and also a huge thank you to Tiffany (@acciopirate on Tumblr) who really helped me through the fic writing process. Bonus points to anyone who caught my reference to the original Days in the Sun sequence.
> 
> Victorian AU headcanons: http://fantasticalnonsense18.tumblr.com/post/159957233190/random-musings-of-the-day-batb-aus


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